


Quantum Meruit

by hermitized



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Fainting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermitized/pseuds/hermitized
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor tries to get back to work too hard, too fast. Ollie and Wes help him through it, discovering something new about their relationship in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think you need to read the prequel to understand this bit of the series, but "Animus Nocendi" could provide some deeper context :) Thanks for reading!

While Oliver is in his pre-lunch meeting, arguing for the 90th time why they need to stop using Windows Azure and switch to something with decent support, Wes is sitting next to Connor in their Contracts lecture.

Connor can’t sit still, fidgeting, itching under his cast, glancing around the room. Wes doesn’t blame him. He wouldn’t be able to sit still either. He nudges him with his shoulder and asks, “You all right?”

He looks up at the clock, slumps in his chair. “Fine.”

While Professor Ghakar is going over the essay one last time, and taking questions, Oliver is putting on his headphones and going out for a walk. As he turns the corner on his favorite deli, Connor and Wes are packing up and walking down the aisle. Wes is goading Connor into an argument, any argument, anything to make him talk.

He is talking, engaging, and then, as they reach the top of his room, he just...stops. Wes turns to look at him, and sees he’s gone horribly pale. “Connor?”

“I don’t feel very good.”

His knees buckle, but Wes is already there, guiding him to the ground. “Hey, Connor!”

Professor Ghakar looks up, folding her glasses. “Mr. Gibbins?”

Connor’s head lolls to the side. An icy fist clenches in Wes’s chest. “We need some help.”

He puts a hand Connor’s cheek, the other arm wrapped around his ribs, their legs unavoidably tangled up. Connor’s eyes flutter, then open. “Personal space.”

Ghakar kneels down. “Mr. Walsh, are you ill?”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

Wes rubs his back. Ghakar turns to him. “I’ll drive you to Student Health Services. Can you help him walk?”

As they’re laying Connor in the back seat of Ghakar’s sensible Volvo, Oliver is walking back to the office, sandwich in hand. If everything goes well with the update, he and his team could leave early. If not, they might be there all night.

He feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He doesn’t stop to check it, until he finds a place where he can set down his sandwich and drink.

[Wes Gibbins: Call me. Urgent.]

He calls him. “Oliver?”

“Hi, what happened?”

“Connor’s feeling pretty sick. Can you come get him from my place?”

“Sure. Is he okay?”

“Low blood sugar, I think. He just needs to rest.”

“He wasn’t ready.” Oliver sounds guilty.

“It was his call, Ollie. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay.” He wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As he’s rushing back to the office, a nurse is walking Connor back into the waiting room. Wes is digging through his pockets, and handing him a couple bills to go buy a juice at the gas station. Connor leans back against the couch, on Wes’s shoulder.

While Oliver is explaining himself to his supervisor, Wes is texting Asher. [Need a ride. You free?]

[In five. Where you at?]

[SHS lobby with C. Seeya soon.]

Oliver’s getting in his car at the same time as Wes and Asher are gently sliding Connor into the backseat of Asher’s car. Connor laughs, presses his cheek to the seat, mumbles something about “Rich boy leather.”

They have a short drive. Ollie has a long one. They walk Connor upstairs, his arms slung over each of their shoulders, careful not to pull to hard on his collarbone, his ribs, his casted arm. They lay him down on Wes’s bed. Connor falls asleep instantly.

Wes looks at Asher. Asher looks at Wes. Wes says, “I’ll trade our Contracts lecture notes for your Civ Pro lecture.”

Asher extends a hand, and they shake on it. He looks over at Connor. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He just need to rest.”

Oliver squeezes his car into a parking spot, runs up the stairs, tries not to pound on the door like a cop. He hears it unlock then, from a sitting position, Wes pulls it open.

When he walks in, he sees Connor, curled up in another man’s bed, and all he can feel is joy, because Connor is sleeping, peacefully and his breathing is steadier and more even than he’s heard it in a long time.

He looks over at Wes sitting on the floor, back against the wall, notebook open in his lap. He’s watching Connor, but when he feels Oliver’s eyes on him, he turns.

Oliver says, voice hushed like a prayer, “I haven’t seen him sleep like that in...it feels like forever. I almost don’t want to wake him.”

Wes shakes his head, waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Wake him up and make sure he’s still in there, then let him sleep.”

Kneeling by the bed, Oliver puts his hand over Connor’s. His eyes jolt open at his touch. “Hi.”

“Hi. What happened to you?”

“Wes really tried to give it to me, right on the floor of Professor Ghakar’s classroom, in front of everybody.” Connor twists his hands, so his fingers and Ollie’s knit together. “You should tell him I don’t go for those big dramatic gestures. If he feels something for me, he should really just say something.”

Oliver turns to Wes for the translation. Wes says, “We were walking out of Civ Pro, and Connor fainted. We were talking, and then he suddenly went silent. I looked over and...his knees just buckled. I don’t think he was out long. He just kinda...couldn’t stand anymore. Professor Ghakar drove us over to Student Health Services.”

He hands Oliver the doctor’s and nurses’ cards. “They say he’s dehydrated and exhausted, and the doctor recommended he stay off his feet for at least six hours, and if he starts to seems really confused and disoriented, or experiences severe pain, take him to the ER.”

Oliver’s stomach compresses into a tight, cold ball. He’s not ready. He takes the cards. “Thank you. I don’t know what to say. I…”

Connor tugs on Ollie’s sleeve, forcing his attention back to him. “Then, he and Asher laid me in the backseat of Asher’s car. Haven’t done it like that in awhile.”

“Do you know where you are now?”

“Wes’s bed.” Connor looks up at him. His eyes are deep, glassy pools. “Why didn’t anyone tell me how good getting beaten up would be for my game when I was still single?”

Oliver runs his fingers through Connor’s hair, feels the sweat beading on his forehead, his pulse pounding in his palm. “They’d never have been able to keep you in one piece.”

“That would have been a tragedy.”

“What year is it?”

“2015.”

“What’s the date?”

“Hell if I know, man. Thursday?”

“Who’s the President?”

“Barack Hussein Obama, the poor bastard.”

Connor’s eyes close. Oliver squeezes his hand. “Do you want to go home?”

His mouth twists. “Can I have a few minutes?”

“Of course.”

And then, like a light switch, Connor is asleep again.

Oliver sits back on his heels. He leans against the wall. He looks at Wes.

Wes asks, “What are you drinking?”

“What do you have?”

Wes point to his fridge. Oliver opens it, looks around the apartment, shakes his head. “College students.”

“I’m a 1L.”

“Law students.” He shuts the fridge. “What’d you drink?”

“Whiskey.”

“No one who saved my boyfriend is living in an apartment without some decent whiskey, and some real food.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be back.”

Saved my boyfriend…

Wes does term I.D. drills. Forty-five minutes later, Ollie’s back. He shoves some bags into his refrigerator, gets out one of those nice beers that’s brewed somewhere in San Diego, California, puts a bottle of Laphroaig on the counter. “It’s scotch. You’ll like it.”

Producing a plastic cup from somewhere, Wes walks over, opens the bottle, pours about a shot and a half in the bottom of the cup, and takes a sip. It burns his tongue, sour. The smell reminds him of the loaner violin he’d tried to play in elementary school orchestra. “I do.”

Ollie opens his beer. At the snap of the cap, Connor jolts into a ball and moans. Ollie flinches, and says, “Sorry,” to the counter.

Wes wants to put a hand on his shoulder, pull him into a tight hug. Instead, he says, “Ready for another contracts lesson?”

He runs him through activation clauses, invalidation terms, and what exactly it takes to make a contract invalid. Oliver in an incredible student: attentive, quick to catch on, inquisitive and probing. Even as he’s opening his third beer, he’s asking questions that send Wes scrambling deep into his notes and textbooks for answers. Wes has forgotten about the time when his alarm goes off. He pulls his phone. “Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I gotta meet Michaela and Laurel. I can’t skip on them.”

Ollie puts down his beer. “We can head out soon. I…”

“It’s fine, Oliver. I won’t be that long, just hang out.” He shrugs. “You need rest too. Sleep it off. I won’t be more than two hours.”

After he’s gone, Oliver climbs onto the bed with Connor. He presses against his spine, nuzzles against the back of his head. “He’s a good kid.”

Connor rolls, adjusts so that the curves of their knees fit together, tiny movements. “You like him?”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a while, then Connor laughs softly.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Then, he says, “He kinda saved my life.”

“I know.”

“I should thank him.”

“You should.”

Connor goes quiet. The rise and fall of his chest becomes slow and even. Ollie kisses his ear, lays down on the pillow, tries to take deep breaths.

_Don’t make him regret it._


	2. Chapter 2

When Wes walks back in, Connor and Oliver are still asleep on his bed. Connor is curled in half-fetal position. He’s lucky, at least, that his bad arm and bad ribs are on the same side. His chin is tucked to his chest.

Oliver is lying next to him, so close his nose is resting on the back of his neck, one hand resting lightly near the spot where Wes instinctively knows they had to cut into him. His other hand is in Connor’s hair, thumb resting on the ridge of his ear.

Wes isn’t sure he’s ever felt so empty and alone in his entire life.

He picks up a beer, the bottle of whiskey, his Crim Pro materials, and goes into the bathroom. He sits on the tile, takes a slug out of the bottle, and starts highlighting every reference to statute of limitation laws in green.

A shadow falls across the pages. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”

Wes looks up, rubs his eyes. “What?”

Oliver is leaning in the doorway, arms folded over his chest. “We’re in your space. There’s not enough room for you.”

“It’s fine, Oliver.”

“It’s not fine. It’s your home.”

Wes tilts his head back against the wall, motions for him to come in. “It’s not that. I sit on the floor all the time, when they come over. It’s…” He swallows. “I was seeing this girl. It was...pretty serious, I guess. We weren’t really dating, but…”

“You cared for each other, a lot.”

“Yeah. And then she just…” He clicks the cap onto his highlighter. “Disappeared.”

“I’m sorry.” Oliver trods carefully over, sits down next to him.

Wes shrugs. “What happens, happens. That’s just way things are. It’s just...when I saw you and him...I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You miss it. Intimacy.”

“Yeah.”

They both look at the floor.

“I’m HIV Positive,” Oliver says. Wes doesn’t flinch, so he looks up at him. “He told you.”

“Yeah.”

Oliver’s mouth twists. “He kinda tells you guys everything, huh?”

“Not everything, no. Definitely not everything.”

Wes takes a swig of whiskey from the bottle, passes it to Oliver. It’s cold and clean on his lips. Ollie tugs on his elbow. “Don’t sit in the bathroom, at least. I’ll go out and buy you some hideous beanbag chair, I mean it.”

“All right, all right.”

Connor’s still sleeping when they tiptoe out into the main room. They sit across from him, backs against the wall. Wes says, “He probably won’t fall asleep that deeo again, if you move him. Everything will get unsettled again. It’ll hurt him.”

“I know.”

“It’s okay,” Wes says. “Just let him sleep.”

Oliver glances around. “Do you have any cups around here, or do I need to push those on you too?”

Wes reaches behind the dresser, and tosses him a sleeve of plastic cups. Oliver smiles. “Fair enough.”

They have both Oliver and Connor’s laptops, so they watch TV. Oliver loves to put court shows on in front of cops and lawyers. Connor will always smirk, and make some comment at the police or the legal team. Wes will make the exact same face, but he keeps his comments to himself.

Oliver’s cheek is resting on Wes’s shoulder. They’re sitting so close, Wes has nowhere to put his right hand, so it’s resting on Ollie’s leg very lightly, fingers curved, fingertips light. Scared to leave an impression.

“Hey, kids. Having fun over there?”

Their heads jerk up. Wes hits the spacebar. Connor is looking at them, arms drawn into his ribs. He’s smiling, slightly. “No fair, leaving me out. I always like when they’re trying to compress a really prolonged trial into thirty minutes.”

Wes looks at Oliver. Oliver looks at Wes. Oliver stands up, and kneels down next to the bed. “Can you move over?”

“Help?”

Oliver lifts Connor slightly, and slides over to sit next to him. Connor rest his head on his torso, Oliver slides his arm over his shoulders. Wes walks over, and sets the laptop down on his thighs. “It’s probably better if you hold it.”

“Umm...okay.” Oliver adjusts. Wes squishes in on the other side of the bed. His leg falls next to Connor’s, following the line of his body. Connor looks over at him, smiles and, for once, doesn’t say anything. Oliver looks over at Wes. “Are you good? Can you see?”

“I can see.”

Oliver starts the episode. Some square-jawed lawyer is talking about “diminished capacity” and “motion to dismiss”. Connor laughs. “This guy doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.”

“Maybe, if you have to drop out, you should be a T.V. lawyer,” Wes says.

Connor and Oliver both look at him. Connor smirks. “You want to watch me on your television, Waitlist?”

“I just know you’d never let them make an error like that. And you’re good-looking. You could do double-duty. I bet they’d pay you really well.”

Oliver laughs. Wes looks down, takes a swig of whiskey. Connor stretches out his fingers, and Wes takes his hand, pressing their palms together. He looks at the screen. “Does anyone have a paralegal on this show, or…?”

“Of course not, Wes. That would be boring.”

They lay together, sniping comments back and forth for two episodes, and it’s very nice, but the spell is broken, the glamor is fading. Connor is awake, and in pain, and struggling to climb up the wall of the pit he’s fallen into every second that he’s conscious. Wes knows that well for to closely for comfort.

At the end of the second episode, Connor lifts his head to look at Ollie. Ollie asks, “Ready to go?”  
“Ready?”

Wes hand him Connor’s shoes. Ollie asks, “Do you have his backpack?

He collects all of Connor’s notes, while Oliver puts on his shows. He helps him stand, holding his weight against his torso. Connor looks up at Wes. His face has taken on a very serious cast. “Wes. Thank you, for your help. I don’t know what would have happened if...if you hadn’t been there.”

He looks down. Oliver pulls him in closer. Wes says, “You’d have been fine. Someone would have helped you up.”

“Professor Ghakar would have helped, when she saw. I might have gotten stepped on before that. Might have cracked my skull open hitting the ground.”

“Connor…”

“I’m just saying...I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of people think I’m kind of an asshole. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of people don’t like me, or Professor Keating, or...us.”

_Us…_

“I like you,” Ollie says. It’s soft enough that Wes thinks, maybe, he wasn’t meant to hear it.

Connor bumps against his shoulder. “Morbid, overwrought fantasies aside, what I mean to say is, you went above and beyond. So, really. sincerely, thank you. Now, can we hug or something?”

For the first time, probably in the history of them having known each other, Wes gives Connor a real hug, like he means it and isn’t just play acting. He slides his arms around his waist, pulls him against his chest, places his palms against his back and truly feels how small he is, how fragile, the thin bones pressing to his skin. However much he tries to be above it all, he is human. He bleed, he can be broken, he can be treated cruelly and absued.

They’re both human. They’re both frightened, exhausted, at their wits end. Neither of them really feels like they have anything to hold onto anymore. Connor presses his face into his shoulder, grabbing handfuls of his shirt. Wes places a hand on the back of his head, rubs the edge of his hairline with his thumb.

He looks up, and sees Ollie duck his head, scrubbing his eyes with his sleeve. Wes doesn’t mean too, but he shifts, and that breaks the connection between them. Connor draws back. Ollie steps forward.

Hugging Oliver isn’t like hugging Connor. Connor matches Wes, fitting himself in against him. Though he’s physically smaller, Ollie guides him in, brings him in to match with him.

“Thank you,” he says again. “Thank you.”

“Text me when you’re home,” Wes says.

After they leave, he has a couple shots of whiskey, puts a podcast on on his laptop, and goes to bed. It is very cold.

He curls his hand into a fist, trying to make his fingertips warm against his own palm.


End file.
